Tokyofoodcast

Once in a while, you may see a sake bottle with bright red letters warning “Kiken-na sake”.

At the last Ichibe monthly kikizake-kai featuring Chiyomusubi, we learned how dangerous sake can be tamed when the proper precautions are taken.

The restaurant did not do this for a show, they rested this sake for a few hours, opened [...]

[Read more →]

Once a year in October, Tatsuriki has a very special sit-down dinner pairing their sake with very nice Japanese food. This Tokyo event is something I truly look forward to; it serves as one of my signals that autumn has begun, or it is sake season.
Tatsuriki is a very popular brew and is frequently featured [...]

[Read more →]

After returning from our trip to Indonesia this summer, I put all my new energy and focus into a new business project, kicked-off the web site, and started a simple, new Japan photo blog for all my travels. That kept me busy at the keyboard, but away from Tokyofoodcast. If you were thinking that maybe [...]

[Read more →]

When I stopped at the Tokyu Foodshow in Shibuya last week, I spotted Kaiun’s crown jewel bottles, to-bin dori daiginjo that hold Toji’s name, Hase Shokichi label, wrapped in a thin white paper and carefully stocked in the refrigerator. Whenever I see this bottle in a shop, I can’t help myself but pause for [...]

[Read more →]

Musashino Shuzo’s annual shinshu or new sake tasting dinner the other day started with a really tough quiz. As the guests arrived, we were asked to sit down and try four honjozo bottles in a completely blind tasting. Our first task for the night was to pick SkiI Masamune out of the four. This sake [...]

[Read more →]

Back in February, I found out this year’s Niigata Sake-no-jin was on March 15 and 16. Since Te-chan and I were going to be in Koriyama visiting Kinpou Shuzou on the 15th, I thought to make a grand circle and go to Niigata from Fukushima. At the time, I thought some members of the [...]

[Read more →]

At the November Mitsuya benkyokai, Takase-sensei tried out a new tasting method on the group. He placed four glasses of sake in front of us and told us to guess what each of these four 720 ml bottles were priced at. Guessing grades is always a fun game, but price? Gee, I don’t know.
All of [...]

[Read more →]

Dear Robert-Gilles,
Thank you for sending us, Tokyo Sake Geeks, two wonderful bottles of Shizuoka mystery sake. Although, I was the one who called ourselves sake geeks before, looking at some pictures, I thought the name is a poor fit for this tasting group from last weekend. Tokyo Sake Babes? Too cheesy. Tokyo Sake Chicks? No, [...]

[Read more →]

The Second Trans Pacific Cyber Tasting was organized by Tim @ UrbanSake, Valerie @ The Sake Diaries, Rick and Hiroko @ Itadakimasu, in the US and Melinda @ Tokyo through the drinking glass, Robert-Gilles @ Shizuoka Sake in Japan. Hiroko was kind enough to do the research on availability in the US and presented excellent [...]

[Read more →]

Robert-Gilles, you have the power, you have the key to this mystery…. Everyone at the tasting is dying to know what those three bottles were.
Our Shizuoka sake guru, Robert-Gilles at Shizuoka Sake, kindly sent us, the Tokyo sake geeks (me and Melinda), these three bottles without the labels. So, the only thing we knew at [...]

[Read more →]